by Amanda Scott
“Bran,” Mr. Lasenby said grimly, “call this devil off, will you? Dash it, he’s got rats in his belfry.”
“Max, come,” Manningford commanded. Then, chuckling as Lasenby, freed at last, moved to gaze down at Jarvis, he added, “Look here, everyone, we’ve got to get out of here. Someone is bound to want to find out what all the noise was about.”
Nell said, “But we didn’t see anyone but a porter and four men playing cards in the card room. They didn’t even look up when Max ran past, so they must be pretty deaf, I should think, and the porter is afraid of Max.”
Manningford grinned at her. “So that’s how you got in. I wondered. But—” He broke off. “Quiet, someone’s coming.”
Even as he spoke, two rough-looking men came hurriedly into the room. “What’s amiss here?” the burly, grizzled one in the lead demanded. “Heard shots, we did.”
Manningford said casually, “Pistol misfired, is all. Two men fainted from the shock. Nothing to worry you.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it, for it ain’t none o’ our business, sir. Just stepped in, finding the door ajar, ye see, ter discover if one Joseph Lasenby might be on the premises.”
Mr. Lasenby stiffened, drawing the man’s attention, but Manningford said instantly, “No use to protect the man, Giuseppe. It would be wrong to impede these gentlemen in the course of their duty. That’s your man, gentlemen, on the floor. Here, Sep,” he said, pulling rather clumsily at Lasenby’s coat and then bending over Jarvis, “help get him up. Fellow ought to pay his bills, you know. Not the thing to cheat his creditors.”
“That’s right, sir,” said the spokesman. “A pleasure it is to find someone so understanding, sir. We’ve been a-searching of this cove all the way from Lunnon, we ’ave, but once we learnt there were a club here, we knowed where to look. A gamester, he be, by what we’ve been told. But we won’t be requiring yer assistance so long as you be sure he’s Lasenby.”
Sure as can be, my friend, but he’s no doubt got a card case on him, you know. You may see for yourselves. In his waistcoat pocket, it would be, I don’t doubt.”
And to Nell’s surprise, not to mention Mr. Lasenby’s, the card case was found there, just as Manningford had suggested. She held her breath when the man opened it, but let it out again when he nodded and said, “Just as you say, sir, ‘the Honorable Joseph Lasenby.’ That’s our man. We’ll just be taking him along now. Not to worry,” he added, looking at Mr. Lasenby. “He’s only to pay off his debts and he’ll be free as a bird in a twink.” Then, laughing, he bent to Jarvis’s shoulders while his companion took the feet, and a moment later, they were gone.
The others looked at one another, and when Nell’s gaze encountered Manningford’s, she began to chuckle and then to laugh until tears streamed down her face. Then he laughed, and Mr. Lasenby, who had stood staring at the doorway as though he expected the men, at any minute, to discover their error and return for him, looked first at Manningford and then at Nell. Smiling doubtfully, he said, “I shall never ignore the duns again, dash it. I couldn’t think what you were doing when you snatched at my coat, Bran. My best card case, too.”
Manningford chuckled again. “I had the greatest fear that you might have forgotten to put any cards in it.”
“Oh, no,” Mr. Lasenby said. “I don’t forget such things as that. One never knows when one might need his card. Oh, but look, that fellow is waking up.”
“Yes,” Manningford agreed, “and that means Jarvis may be doing likewise below, you know, so it will be as well for you to play least in sight, Sep. Since I took the liberty of removing his card case when I put yours in his pocket, we must hope that our friends will detain him for some time, though not, one fears for as long as he deserves. Here you, Wolsey,” he added, as the secretary tried to sit up, rubbing his jaw where Nigel’s fist had connected with it, “that fellow you helped is a rogue, as I think you know, and I doubt the affairs of this club can stand much examination. What with all that’s been going on, you’ll likely have the magistrates here any minute, so if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out.”
The man needed no further invitation. He was gone.
Manningford then regarded Nigel. “I think your problems are over. We’ll take the betting book with us, and I think the best thing to do with it is to turn it over to the nearest magistrate, for you can depend upon it that if one entry is false, others are, as well, and that will be enough to shut this place down for good. The affair of Bygrave, as of now, is unsolved, and likely to remain so. I doubt there was a duel at all, but whether Jarvis killed Bygrave because the man meant to kill you or to silence him on his own account, we’ll never know. At present, I think, the important thing is to get your sister and your great-aunt away from this place. Did you ladies keep your chairs?”
“No, we sent them away,” Nell said. “We didn’t think the men ought to see us going into a gentlemen’s club.”
He grinned at her. “Certainly not. This is no place for a lady. Very well, then, Nigel and Sep, take her ladyship to the Monmouth Street corner of the square and call up a chair for her. I am going to allow the pair of you to accompany her to Laura Place, while I drive Miss Bradbourne there in the phaeton. I’ve a few things I want to say to her.”
Nell looked at him rather doubtfully. “If you are vexed with me for coming in here, sir, I must warn you that I cannot be sorry for something I would do again.”
“We must hope that you never find it necessary to do such a thing again, my dear, but I am not vexed in the least.”
“Oh.” She saw that her brother was regarding her quizzically, and said, “I am afraid that Nigel will object to my traveling through the streets in an open carriage with you, sir.”
Nigel shook his head. “You’ll have Max for a chaperon,” he told her with a teasing grin. “Couldn’t ask for a better one.”
Manningford murmured for her ears alone, “Afraid you’ll ruin your reputation, my dear?”
“I wish you would stop that,” she said.
“What?”
“Calling me your dear in that odious way. It is just what Jarvis always called me, and I dislike it enormously.”
“Very well,” Manningford said, “come along with me, my love, and we will discuss the matter at some length.”
Feeling suddenly in that instant very much more aware of him, and in a way she had not been before, she said hastily, “What about this place? Should we not do something?”
“What would you have us do?”
“But what about Jarvis? He will prove that he is not Mr. Lasenby soon enough, you know.”
“Yes, well, we shall have to discuss that. I cannot look forward to a future with Jarvis Bradbourne constantly on my doorstep, so we shall have to dispose of him more permanently.”
“I knew it,” Lady Flavia exclaimed. “I suggested it at the outset, you know. You must tell them, Nell. From the very beginning, I said Jarvis deserved to be murdered. And really, you know, if he did kill that man, Bygrave—”
“But we do not know that he did, ma’am,” Nell protested. “We know only that he might have done.”
Chuckling, Manningford urged Lady Flavia toward the door. “We are not going to murder him, ma’am. I had something rather less violent in mind. It will take some thought, but I rather believe he can be persuaded to make his home in the future on the Continent. He must be made to see that his reputation will suffer if he remains here, and since he cares for it so much, I believe he can be made to see reason.”
“Oh, yes,” Nigel said sweetly, “we can convince him.”
“Yes,” Manningford agreed, “You take my meaning well. And now, my love,” he said to Nell, “you are coming with me.”
Not until they had passed by the house in Laura Place and continued up Great Pulteney Street did she realize that she was being abducted again, but she made no objection. And when he drew to a halt at the gate to Sydney Gardens, got down, and held up his hands to help her, she said only, “You do
not intend to drive me through the gardens again, sir? You are losing your touch, I believe.”
Sternly commanding the dog to stay where he was, Manningford tucked her arm in his, extracted a shilling from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to the gatekeeper. Only when they had passed inside and were walking along the gravel path together did he say, “I suppose I must be losing my touch at that. I was certainly clumsy with Jarvis.”
“I was astonished when you gave him to those men in place of Mr. Lasenby,” she said, chuckling.
“Well, I couldn’t help but think that we should all get out of it more cleanly if we did not have to deal with Jarvis just then. He’d have been bound to make a nuisance of himself over the fact that you and Lady Flavia were present, and while we’ve learned to detect some of his empty threats, I wasn’t in a mood to hear them. My action was purely impulsive, but I think it answered our purpose. I must talk to Axbridge to see if there is anything more we can do to bring him to justice, but I think we will find there is not. Will that distress you?”
“To own the truth,” she said, “I should just as soon not have a felon running about with the Bradbourne name. What with Papa’s suicide, that would put us quite beyond the pale, and I believe I care about that quite as much as Jarvis does.”
“But you will not carry the Bradbourne name yourself much longer, you know,” he said gently, stopping her in the middle of the path. They were some distance from the rear of the hotel now, and there was no one nearby.
“I won’t?” She gazed up at him. “And why is that, sir?”
“Do you not know I love you? Must I say the words?”
“I like to hear them. I know you have never thought my father’s death a matter over which to concern yourself, but I hope you have thought about what it would be to have a wife whose father killed himself. People might—”
“People,” he said firmly, “can go to the devil. I have never concerned myself over what others say of me—except you, and I know you think me irresponsible, but—”
“No, sir, not for weeks. I love you with all my heart.”
“Then, will you marry me, sweetheart?”
“Willingly, sir. Oh, good heavens, I have just had the most appalling thought! Your father’s book! Jarvis will certainly betray us to Mr. Murray. Whatever can we do?”
He smiled. “Father has already written to tell Murray about the promising young authoress who has so kindly helped the Gentlewoman of Quality. You, my love, will become a far more famous authoress than she and I shall live long and prosperously on my wife’s income. Shall you mind living with him, Nell?”
“Not at all, sir. I like him.”
“Surprisingly, so do I.” Then, grinning, he demanded, “Are you sure I am not too old for you?”
She stared at him. “Too old?”
“You once said—”
“I have said any number of idiotic things in my life,” she said, laughing. “If you mean to hold them all against me—”
“The only thing I mean to hold against you,” he said, drawing her into his arms, “is my unworthy self.”
Tilting her head up so that he might kiss her, she said softly, “I have known you only as a man of worth, sir, a man who would protect me without wrapping me in cotton wool, a man who loves me without trying to change me from what I am. You did not turn a hair when you saw me in that club. My own brother would have gasped with dismay, but you did not so much as blink.”
He kissed her then, gently at first, but discovering with delight that his kisses were even nicer in reality than in her dreams, Nell responded with enthusiasm, and he was quick to follow suit. It was some few minutes before he set her back on her heels again but then he said, chuckling, “I didn’t react, my sweet life, because I was terrified that Jarvis would see you. He had a gun and I, for one, did not know whether he would use it, but I did know I didn’t want you in the line of fire if he did. And then that crazy great-aunt of yours—and do not tell me she is not crazy, for I should be most disappointed to hear it—jumped in with her pistol blazing, so to speak, and pandemonium reigned.” He paused, then said, “I really must ask Sydney to show me that throw again.”
“Perhaps he will show me, as well,” Nell said thoughtfully. “It seems to be a very good thing for a woman to know, and I believe Aunt Flavia would like to learn, as well. I don’t know why you are laughing, sir. I daresay Mr. Saint-Denis would quite like to give us all lessons.”
“Ah, Nell,” he said, still chuckling, “I doubt that our life together will ever be boring.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t believe it will.”
The End
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Readers whose curiosity has been aroused by the Regent’s certainty that he could not possibly have been in Bath on December 15, 1785, or by his reluctance to explain that certainty, will be interested to learn that at six p.m. on that date, in her drawing room, Park Street, Park Lane, London, he was secretly married to Maria Anne Fitzherbert before witnesses and according to the rites of the Church of England. The witnesses were Mrs. Fitzherbert’s uncle and her brother. The Reverend Robert Burt officiated. The marriage certificate, placed with Coutts Bank for safekeeping and kept there for nearly 175 years before being discovered in a general filing reorganization, is now in the Royal Archives.
The Royal Marriage Act of 1772 required the King’s consent to any royal marriage, with the penalty for disobedience being forfeiture of one’s right to the throne. Also, the Act of Settlement of 1662, which established the Hanoverian claim to the throne of England, flatly disqualified any claimant whose spouse was Roman Catholic (as Mrs. Fitzherbert was). Therefore, the Prince Regent did everything in his power (including going through with a bigamous marriage to Caroline of Brunswick) to keep secret his marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert. It is not likely, therefore, that even so many years later he would have forgotten the date and time of the wedding.
With regard to Sir Mortimer’s comparison of his work to Miss Austen’s, he is no doubt right in his estimation. The total revenue from all Austen’s books during her lifetime was about one-third of what Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) made on any single one of her novels.
About the Author
A fourth-generation Californian of Scottish descent, Amanda Scott is the author of more than fifty romantic novels, many of which appeared on the USA Today bestseller list. Her Scottish heritage and love of history (she received undergraduate and graduate degrees in history at Mills College and California State University, San Jose, respectively) inspired her to write historical fiction. Credited by Library Journal with starting the Scottish romance subgenre, Scott has also won acclaim for her sparkling Regency romances. She is the recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award (for Lord Abberley’s Nemesis, 1986) and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. She lives in central California with her husband.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Bath Quadrille Copyright © 1991 by Lynne Scott-Drennan
The Bath Charade Copyright © 1991 by Lynne Scott-Drennan
The Bath’s Eccentric Son Copyright © 1992 by Lynne Scott-Drennan
Cover design by Mimi Bark
978-1-4804-1516-4
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrat
ed Media
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EBOOKS BY AMANDA SCOTT
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up now at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia